Optimal allocation of resources to healthcare workers or the general populace: a modelling study.
| Autor: | Vo M; Department of Mathematics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA., Glasser JA; Department of Emergency Medicine, and Department of Pediatrics, Penn State School of Medicine, 500 University Drive, Hershey PA 17033, USA., Feng Z; Department of Mathematics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.; Division of Mathematical Sciences, National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA. |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Zdroj: | Royal Society open science [R Soc Open Sci] 2021 Nov 24; Vol. 8 (11), pp. 210823. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Nov 24 (Print Publication: 2021). |
| DOI: | 10.1098/rsos.210823 |
| Abstrakt: | We consider a model that distinguishes susceptible; infected, but not yet infectious; pre-symptomatic, symptomatic, asymptomatic, and hospitalized infectious; recovered and dead members of two groups: healthcare workers (HCW) and members of the community that they serve. Because of the frequency or duration of their exposures to SARS-CoV-2, a greater fraction of HCW would experience severe COVID-19 symptoms that require medical care, which reduces mortality rates, absent personal protective equipment (PPE). While N95 masks (and, possibly, other scarce medical resources) are available to members of both groups, they do not use them equally well (i.e. efficacy and compliance differ). We investigated the optimal allocation of potentially scarce medical resources between these groups to control the pandemic and reduce overall infections and mortality via derivation and analysis of expressions for the reproduction numbers and final size. We also simulated prevalence and cumulative incidence, quantities relevant to surge capacity and population immunity, respectively. We found that, under realistic conditions, the optimal allocation is virtually or entirely to HCW, but that allocation of surplus masks and other medical resources to members of the general community also reduces infections and deaths. (© 2021 The Authors.) |
| Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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